Team-BHP > Motorbikes


Reply
  Search this Thread
51,573 views
Old 2nd November 2017, 23:44   #16
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by SHANKY11 View Post
Seeing your thread now made me realize how attached I have been to mine. It definitely would not be easy to part ways with her. Even though she covered only 16k kms in those 9 years (mostly used for touring) I have loved her and maintained her with great care. Never once did she let me down anywhere. Did a long ride last weekend considering it to be my last. Hope to find the right buyer for it who will own it with the same passion and enthusiasm.

Will definitely pen down a review of the D390 soon.
I hope your bike gets a good worthy successor to maintain her well. Try and see if your garage and pocket allows for your mind to stretch the idea of maintaining both the bikes it’ll just be amazing to have the legend aside whilst the new one starts to make its mark in your life
gururajrv is offline  
Old 3rd November 2017, 00:12   #17
BHPian
 
SHANKY11's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: New Delhi
Posts: 94
Thanked: 389 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by gururajrv View Post
I hope your bike gets a good worthy successor to maintain her well. Try and see if your garage and pocket allows for your mind to stretch the idea of maintaining both the bikes it’ll just be amazing to have the legend aside whilst the new one starts to make its mark in your life
I did think about it. But, considering that I live in an apartment complex, with no private space to park the bikes, I dont think it makes sense to have two, when I will be constantly worried about even one. This is also the reason I did not go for a superbike. Such machines attract attention and that is a cause for trouble.
SHANKY11 is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 3rd November 2017, 11:20   #18
Senior - BHPian
 
praful's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Paris
Posts: 1,012
Thanked: 591 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Good stuff there man! Makes me nostalgic, your journey with the 220 has been somewhat similar to mine.

When the first batch of test bikes got around public forums (and friends) in early 2007, I just knew I wanted this bike. I had been pestering the sales manager in the state I was residing to take my booking even before the bike was launched.

I, in fact, had bookings in OR (booking #1 in May 2007), KA (booking #2 in July 2007) & TN (booking #3 in October 2007) in that chronological order. I was under transfer from OR to KA (initially) and finally ended up getting transferred from OR to TN (finally). Hence the tristate booking . On second thoughts I should have taken the KA booking because a year down the line I got transferred to KA anyway.

First year I used to ride down from Chennai to BLR to get the service done at AutoService. Within the first two years I had already clocked 50K kms, the next 50K kms took another 4 years. And now over the last 4 years I have barely managed to do another 30K kms.

Mine turns 10 in a couple of weeks, can't say it has been one happy journey. There have been lots of ups and downs, but for its time this (and the Karizma) was definitely the best bike for touring. My 220 & I have been through a whole lot of things. I have done everything from commuting to work, trackdays, offroad riding, buying vegetables :P, going for long rides, going for ultra long rides to more recently taking on a dirt track.Even today its hard to find a replacement upgrade (lateral or otherwise) which meets or exceeds this bike in all key parameters, some compromises need to be made.

I think we are a rare breed now, the 220 Fi. Most of the folks I know have either sold it or converted to carb.

Just for fun attaching a picture from when I got transferred from Chennai to Bangalore in July 2008, me and my pickup truck moved almost all of my belongings between cities. This is before I had picked up saddle & tank bags.

My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-dsc05923.jpg

Last edited by praful : 3rd November 2017 at 11:35.
praful is offline   (2) Thanks
Old 4th November 2017, 01:13   #19
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by praful View Post
Good stuff there man! Makes me nostalgic, your journey with the 220 has been somewhat similar to mine.

When the first batch of test bikes got around public forums (and friends) in early 2007, I just knew I wanted this bike. I had been pestering the sales manager in the state I was residing to take my booking even before the bike was launched.
Thanks mate. I'm glad this post did manage to be the genie for you'll by bringing back the old memories associated with fellow bhpians experience with the bike.

Quote:
I, in fact, had bookings in OR (booking #1 in May 2007), KA (booking #2 in July 2007) & TN (booking #3 in October 2007) in that chronological order. I was under transfer from OR to KA (initially) and finally ended up getting transferred from OR to TN (finally). Hence the tristate booking . On second thoughts I should have taken the KA booking because a year down the line I got transferred to KA anyway.
Lol - you managed to get this done in all the 3 states!

Quote:
First year I used to ride down from Chennai to BLR to get the service done at AutoService. Within the first two years I had already clocked 50K kms, the next 50K kms took another 4 years. And now over the last 4 years I have barely managed to do another 30K kms.
I did the same thing once to have ridden down from Mysore to Autoservice to get it serviced

Quote:
Mine turns 10 in a couple of weeks, can't say it has been one happy journey. There have been lots of ups and downs, but for its time this (and the Karizma) was definitely the best bike for touring. My 220 & I have been through a whole lot of things. I have done everything from commuting to work, trackdays, offroad riding, buying vegetables :P, going for long rides, going for ultra long rides to more recently taking on a dirt track.Even today its hard to find a replacement upgrade (lateral or otherwise) which meets or exceeds this bike in all key parameters, some compromises need to be made.
Do you have any other bike accompanying the 220? Indeed ZMA was a wonderful tourer. I always loved the K&N output on a ZMA. It was so evidently shown the bike was running on a aftermarket filter.

Quote:
I think we are a rare breed now, the 220 Fi. Most of the folks I know have either sold it or converted to carb.
I'm sure they are even now regretting to have switched to carb. Either the mechs would have forced them to, or they may have experienced a greater ordeal in relation to service support offered by Bajaj for such a brilliant machine.

Nice to see a pic attached back from 2008! This now stands as a legend amidst other array of smart machines.

Yes, my bike relocated me from Mysore to Bangalore with a smaller kit than yours Attaching a similar pic minus me:

My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-img_0419.jpg
gururajrv is offline   (3) Thanks
Old 8th July 2018, 21:16   #20
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Resumed usage of the bike after a long time. I must say the bike is holding up as good as it was on the day one even after 10.8 years of ownership showing on its age. First ever thing I did was to order some fresh engine oil since the previous oil change was sometime in Sep 2016 and the usage fell south drastically since then. So, the need to change never came at all. However, it wasn’t really safe to use the bike with the oil inside it which should’ve weathered out big time. I went shopping off online and amazon gave me a brilliant deal for a semi synthetic engine oil from Shell during Apr 2018, for which I paid Rs.871/- for 3 litre can, which I believe was a steal for the price I paid. I also got an engine oil flush from Motul and did a flush with the old oil before I could use the new one.

As for the experience with Shell, coming from Motul 300v fully synthetic, I should say this semi synthetic fairs up well but will continue to monitor the performance of the bike as it’s already been 1k kms since the oil change. I will switch to Motul after utilising the can completely. Bike gulps up 1150ml for one change. Worth every penny this time for me as I consider it as pure steal!
Attached Thumbnails
My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-67fe884d156c476eb445c94eee0b5fe4.png  

gururajrv is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 7th November 2018, 23:55   #21
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Posting after a long time. Bike completed 60,000 kms today planning to give it a good service this time around since suspension is barely working at full capacity and it’s gone rock hard now due to missing maintenance for a long time. Will be dropping it for repairs over the weekend to address body related issues.
Attached Thumbnails
My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-32dd04259782477faa2d14a1d8bcc6e3.jpeg  

gururajrv is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 8th November 2018, 08:14   #22
Senior - BHPian
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Pune
Posts: 1,907
Thanked: 2,748 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Your thread brought back some of the old memories of my 220. I had to sell it off after 4 years of ownership due to neck pain because of the riding posture. The bike never gave me any serious Issues, apart from a kaput RR unit right at the time of delivery and a dead battery (happened right next to my trusted spare part shop). Had did some mods (FFE, Semi flat slide carb and a big bore) the bike was a treat to ride.
Attached Thumbnails
My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-capture.png  

rakesh_r is offline  
Old 8th November 2018, 22:48   #23
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by rakesh_r View Post
Your thread brought back some of the old memories of my 220. I had to sell it off after 4 years of ownership due to neck pain because of the riding posture. The bike never gave me any serious Issues, apart from a kaput RR unit right at the time of delivery and a dead battery (happened right next to my trusted spare part shop). Had did some mods (FFE, Semi flat slide carb and a big bore) the bike was a treat to ride.
Honestly 220 stands apart in the lifecycle of Pulsar product. I only wish Bajaj had focused on developing not improvising 220 to further strengthen the product in the market. Sales of 220 is consistent is what I’ve heard because even today, 220 is the only bike even after a decade to have not taken any visual changes. Bajaj has only revised decals intermittently I only wish Bajaj reintroduces FI unit to this bike.
gururajrv is offline  
Old 9th November 2018, 05:23   #24
BANNED
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Kollam
Posts: 2,018
Thanked: 6,632 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by rakesh_r View Post
I had to sell it off after 4 years of ownership due to neck pain because of the riding posture.
Hated the posture but could never bring myself to discard the motorcycle hence went for a handle-bar mod.

My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-20171112171533_img_007902.jpeg

The fit and finish is factory due to sticking to Bajaj spares for the job.

With the stock setup fatigue would set in real quick, especially when touring.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gururajrv View Post
Honestly 220 stands apart in the lifecycle of Pulsar product. I only wish Bajaj had focused on developing not improvising 220 to further strengthen the product in the market. Sales of 220 is consistent is what I’ve heard because even today, 220 is the only bike even after a decade to have not taken any visual changes. Bajaj has only revised decals intermittently I only wish Bajaj reintroduces FI unit to this bike.
Indeed as mentioned by Sagar from PowerDrift, the P220 is to Bajaj what the Godzilla is to Nissan!

It is quite funny when you come to think of it, the P220 was intended to rival the ZMA not only in performance but also in run-time as the ZMA was in production from 2003 without major changes for a decade before Hero brought out the face-lifted variant in 2013.

I'm waiting to see whether Bajaj would follow suite and go for a radical upgrade on the P220 after the decade mark as done by Hero.

Personally the P220 is just wonderful as it is, the BS4 variants though they come with SAI lack the complicated electronics and the BCU all together bringing up the reliability quotient of the motorcycle.

As for FI, I'm not a fan of it, they're just not suited for our riding conditions, especially when frequently crossing state borders is a priority.
ashwinprakas is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 9th November 2018, 06:03   #25
Distinguished - BHPian
 
ninjatalli's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Bangalore
Posts: 3,786
Thanked: 15,372 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Amazing write-up and kudos on the dedication and up-keep of the bike. A 2004 (ex)owner of the default P150 model with 10+ years & 65,000kms of ownership, I'm completely on the other end compared to you.

Bajaj bike(s) ownership for me has been a delightful yet tiring experience - so much that I am wary of buying another bajaj for the future (I'm currently looking out to purchase one). The primary reason being having access to a Honda Unicorn for the better part of the ownership years of the Pulsar and getting to observe the differences between the bikes.


Good to see such satisfied customers - here's to many more happy years of ownership for you
ninjatalli is offline  
Old 9th November 2018, 09:19   #26
Senior - BHPian
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Pune
Posts: 1,907
Thanked: 2,748 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ashwinprakas View Post
Hated the posture but could never bring myself to discard the motorcycle hence went for a handle-bar mod.
With the stock setup fatigue would set in real quick, especially when touring.
I started getting shoulder pain especially when my wife (had just got married) started accompanying me for rides (which was very frequent). During braking her entire weight used to come over my shoulders. End of the day my neck used to turn Numb.
rakesh_r is offline  
Old 9th November 2018, 10:12   #27
BANNED
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Kollam
Posts: 2,018
Thanked: 6,632 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by rakesh_r View Post
I started getting shoulder pain especially when my wife (had just got married) started accompanying me for rides (which was very frequent). During braking her entire weight used to come over my shoulders. End of the day my neck used to turn Numb.
I can relate to that on every motorcycle I've ridden with a new pillion on, I say new as my seasoned pillions are a bliss to ride with, I've even once left a friend stranded as I hadn't noticed that he'd gotten off the motorcycle, until he started shouting that is.

Rather than using the grab rail(upright motorcycles) or the fuel tank(committed motorcycles) the pillion usually tends to depend on the rider for support.

In my case I usually freeze up when the pillion gets too cozy with me and since that poses as a risk, especially in panic situations, I make it a point to guide them on how to grab/hold on to the motorcycle and not me, especially when braking.

Also helps if the pillion keeps an eye on the road as an unaware pillion is more likely to go off balance while accelerating hard.

While we're on the topic of pillions, since my P220 has a top box there is no wrong way to mount the motorcycle and it has taken me quite by surprise as a good number of people aren't aware of how to do it right.

Rather then stand on the peg before throwing the other leg over they tend to throw their leg over while they're still standing on the ground.

Considering the number of motorcycles on the road I guess India is in dire need of MSF courses, though I doubt that would ever happen.
ashwinprakas is offline  
Old 13th February 2019, 19:08   #28
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Greetings from an old friend! Got the bike serviced today from Khivraj Bajaj whitefield as they’re the only authorized service center in bangalore to work on FI engine. My contact Subbu (aka Subramanya) helped me by fixing the suspension problem by adjusting it.

It was more than 2 years since the bike was serviced as I had changed the oil alone and kept continuing on using the bike and it didn’t give up on me till date even after 60k kms on odo. This is another reason to hold on to FI system on this bike despite getting numerous suggestions on converting it to Carb. But not only the exclusivity will be lost but also the lighting quick acceleration as well which I’m not ready to let go off. Anyways my old friend says hello to everyone. Overall cost of service is 2,134 which is way too good considering the age of the bike standing at 11.5 years.

Acceleration is still crazy as it was from day 1
Attached Thumbnails
My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-eab5e07d6b614a349fea38a182332ebf.jpeg  

My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-12a341a572fa4a92991d9185be0cdf49.jpeg  

My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-a4e0e4995c8a40378971a7ae5fe5af73.jpeg  

gururajrv is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 13th February 2019, 19:48   #29
BANNED
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Kollam
Posts: 2,018
Thanked: 6,632 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by gururajrv View Post
Acceleration is still crazy as it was from day 1
Bajaj really knows how to set up their FI's, the 220DTSFi and RS200 are testament to that when riding their carburetted counterparts side by side.

On another note, your bend-pipe is really thick! Here's my DTSi for comparison.

My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!-9804ed22e2cc27d2057be2d702891a39.jpg
ashwinprakas is offline  
Old 13th February 2019, 19:57   #30
Senior - BHPian
 
gururajrv's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: KA 01-09
Posts: 1,237
Thanked: 2,429 Times
Re: My 2007 Pulsar 220 FI – Tribute to a wonderful companion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ashwinprakas View Post
Bajaj really knows how to set up their FI's, the 220DTSFi and RS200 are testament to that when riding their carburetted counterparts side by side.

On another note, your bend-pipe is really thick! Here's my DTSi for comparison.

Attachment 1848248
Yes. But RS200 acceleration is way too linear compared to 220FI. I really hope they reintroduce the FI system that should enable me to avail or switch to a better FI system to stay current with the service and availability of parts.

When you say bend pipe are you referring to the silencer manifold? Because FI silencer doesn’t have a catcon compared to DTSI edition.
gururajrv is offline  
Reply

Most Viewed
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Team-BHP.com
Proudly powered by E2E Networks